Preda's Voice (Guardians of Vaka Book 1) (7 page)

13

P
reda awoke to blinding light. She quickly closed her eyes and tried to sit up. She let out a groan as the excruciating pain in her head and left side bloomed like shock waves.

“Shh. Just lie back. Don’t move or speak.”

The voice belonged to Al. He was sitting next to her. Preda almost started sobbing in relief as the memory of what had happened at the airport came back to her. She could feel the loud vibration underneath her of what must be an airplane flying. Preda absurdly felt cheated because she didn’t remember takeoff. She had always thought that must be the most exciting part of flying.

After a few seconds, she could hear Al and Tamron whispering beside her, but she couldn’t make out what they were saying. Preda tried to open her eyes again slowly and was rewarded with less pain than before. It was actually quite dim in the plane, and the window shade beside her had been closed. She was lying down flat in her chair and realized they must be in first class.

Al leaned down and whispered to her, “Try to stay as still as possible. You’ve been stabbed in your left side, and I only had time to place a few quick sutures. If you move too much, you might start bleeding again.”

Preda moved her hand over her left side and found the bandage covering her wound. She flinched at the pain. Tears started flowing down the sides of her face, and she tried to speak. “I’m so sorry. I almost got myself killed. How did I get here?” she croaked out.

“You screamed, Preda. I heard and…” He hesitated. “I took care of them. Luckily Tamron has connections in the right places, and we were able to block off the bathroom long enough to stitch you up and dispose of the evidence. He carried you onto the plane. We told everyone you were afraid of flying and had sedated yourself with antianxiety medications.” After a moment he continued. “It could have been worse. We were lucky.”

Preda was trembling at his words.
Dispose of the evidence?
“Who were they?” she whispered.

She felt oddly guilty at their assumed fates, which she had inadvertently caused.

Al’s face darkened at the question. “Did you hear them speak or make a sound?” he asked.

Preda thought back to the events that had taken place in the airport bathroom. No one had actually spoken. The only communication had been through a cell phone. She had thought the phone had been used to prevent others from overhearing, but maybe that was not the case.

“No,” she whispered.

“That’s because they can’t,” he said. “The Soundless are fanatics devoted to the extermination of spoken words and the manipulations they can produce. They believe you shouldn’t exist. You didn’t hear them speak in there because they’ve all had their vocal cords surgically manipulated and the tips of their tongues removed as infants. For generations they have made it their ultimate goal to extinguish the Vozia. They have almost succeeded.”

He whispered that last sentence, and Al’s expression spoke volumes about guilt and disappointment.

“Thank you,” Preda croaked. “You saved my life.”

“I did no such thing,” he replied. “You screamed in there. If they hadn’t been wearing plugs in their ears, you might have accomplished everything yourself. As it was, you should have seen the state they were in when I entered the room.”

“Were those other women OK?” she asked.

She suddenly recollected the scene, and panic for what she might have done with her voice consumed her. There were innocent victims in there.

“They were unconscious when it happened. There is something about your voice and the recognition within the brain of the person hearing it. In order for it to be effective, the person must be able to interpret your intent—or at least what that person perceives to be your intent. They’re OK, and don’t remember a thing,” he reassured her.

Preda considered Al’s comforting words and felt relieved. She was still shocked to have discovered she had survived. As she thought about it, another sensation superseded all others. Preda tried to sit up suddenly and received a sharp pain in her left side. Al supported her back quickly and prevented further movement.

Preda groaned. “I still have to pee.”

Before she could protest, Tamron Fox was by her side. He gently lifted her up and carried her to the bathroom. He set her down in front of the small doorway and whispered, “I’ll be right outside.”

She was unsteady on her feet, especially when the plane hit turbulence, but she managed to make it to the toilet without too much damage to herself. When she was done, she scoffed at her appearance in the mirror. She really did look like the type of person who would overdose on antianxiety medications.

After hastily running her fingers through her hair and giving up on any semblance of looking like a human being, she pushed on the door. If Preda thought her success inside the bathroom earned her the right to walk back to her seat, she was wrong. Foxy didn’t even give her a chance. He picked her up and carried her as if she weighed no more than a small child. It would have been humiliating if not for the pain. She didn’t even want to consider the wound and what it must look like.

Foxy settled her in the chair, and Al buckled her in. Foxy then rewarded Preda with the best thing she could think of. He unceremoniously deposited Fiver next to her. He handled him with outstretched arms as though he didn’t know how to hold a cat, but Fiver didn’t seem to mind. He quickly curled up under her right arm, and Preda could have sworn the cat was aware of her injury with the way he moved around her. His warm, purring presence was enough to make her throat tight with emotion. Everything that had happened threatened to engulf her, and Fiver was an island she could cling to. As she closed her eyes, one more question came to mind. “How many of them are there?” she whispered.

Al answered. “We don’t know, but we think their army is growing exponentially by the day.”

Preda envisioned a swarm of bees descending on her in an angry cloud.

14

P
reda slept for the majority of the plane ride. She woke in small fits, and the pain in her side would cause her to gasp and wake in alarm. Fiver was always there with his paws on her chest. She wondered if Fiver’s presence outside of a carrier was actually allowed on a plane or if it was something she could get away with because of Foxy’s seemingly unlimited influence. It didn’t matter, and she was beyond caring about broken rules at the moment.

She could hear pieces of conversation around her while drifting in and out of sleep. At one point a flight attendant asked if she was OK. Al answered on her behalf with the same story about inappropriate self-medicating. Preda tried to wake up several times, but she couldn’t keep her eyes open. Finally Al woke her up just before landing and forced her to drink some orange juice.

When she felt more coherent, Preda asked, “Am I really drugged? I feel as if I really did overdose on medications.”

“It’s the effects of the white gas you inhaled. It’s a neurotoxin that can last for a day or so. Frankly I’m shocked you’re coherent enough to speak in full sentences.” Al was chuckling with that last statement.

Preda was shocked too—especially when she considered the dull, unrelenting headache she was currently experiencing. It distracted from the pain in her side, though. If someone had told her yesterday morning she would be on a plane with Mr. Scott after having been stabbed, she would have thought that person was insane. As it was, she was starting to question her own sanity. Her lack of knowledge about her current situation was frustrating, and Preda resolved that once she could think straight again, finding out more details would be her first priority.

As if he could read her mind, Al said, “We have a lot to teach you over the coming weeks. There will be time as we travel.”

“We’re not done traveling when we land in Argentina?” she asked.
Isn’t Argentina far enough?

A stern, angry voice interrupted her thoughts. “There will also be defense training as soon as your wound heals,” Foxy said.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t defend myself,” Preda quietly replied. She felt a little hurt by his disappointment in her.

This was surprising considering how long he’d been in her life. She already found herself valuing his opinion more than she had ever valued Phillip Torrance’s. Foxy grunted in reply and then got up to walk toward the back of the plane.

“He’s been pacing intermittently since we’ve been in the air. I think he’s actually evaluating all the passengers as though they’re suspects. It’s not your fault, Preda. He blames himself,” Al said.

Preda couldn’t help but feel as though she should have done something differently in that airport to prevent what had happened. If only she had been stronger or more capable of defending herself. The Fasten Seat Belt sign came on and interrupted her thoughts. The plane was soon losing altitude at an appreciable rate. She became suddenly nervous for landing, and Preda found this trepidation about flying laughable, considering what she had just been through.

At Al’s suggestion she raised the window shade next to her. The sight was breathtaking. Preda had only ever traveled in a car, and as far as she knew, her feet had never been far from the ground. Now she was suddenly above the clouds with portions of South America glimpsed between them. The sight mesmerized her until the sudden jarring of the plane’s landing gear broke the spell.

She held her side as they made a bumpy landing, and Preda felt it must have been rougher than all other plane landings in history. She wondered who would put themselves through that experience more than once.

Foxy told her to pretend she was asleep, and he picked her up gently and carried her through the airport. Al had Fiver and the bags trailing behind, and as much as she wanted to help, Preda did as she was told and kept her eyes closed. It was so frustrating not being able to get her first glimpse of this foreign country—even if it was only the inside of the airport.

Foxy’s badge was apparently universal, and they skipped customs entirely. It wasn’t long until she was gently placed in the backseat of an SUV parked in a garage and she could open her eyes.
Did Foxy own this car?
It wouldn’t have surprised her if he did. As they left the garage, the afternoon sun was blinding, and Preda was quickly reminded that some of neurotoxin was still affecting her.

As her eyes adjusted, she sat up and was shocked to see how different the streets of Buenos Aires looked from anything else she had ever seen. Preda had often read about other countries and continents in travel books and dreamed of visiting some of these exotic places. Nothing could have prepared her for the reality.

Preda could feel the warmth and heat radiating from the surrounding buildings through the windows. Graffiti covered almost every building they passed, and alternating streets held homeless people and stray dogs alike. Intermittent obligatory tourist spots broke this up. She saw a couple performing the tango on a street corner to the accompaniment of an accordion player. It was beautiful.

They pulled up to a motel far away from the tourist attractions and hidden behind a local market. Preda wouldn’t have even known it was a motel except for the vegetation-covered sign next to where they parked the SUV. As Foxy and Al started getting out of the car, Preda hastily opened her door and got out on her own. Foxy glared at her, but Al was smiling as she started to bravely limp toward the front door. There would be no more carrying if Preda could help it.

The motel didn’t seem very secure to Preda. A screen door led to a lobby peppered with aged and mismatched furniture. The building itself was warm, and fans in the ceiling did nothing but blow a hot breeze back into the lobby. Preda was in love with the place, even as she felt the first beads of sweat drip down the back of her neck from the heavy heat.

Foxy walked to the front desk and didn’t say a word. He just pulled out an ID card and a piece of paper with something written on it Preda couldn’t read. The boy behind the front desk quickly pulled out a set of keys and offered to take their bags. Foxy shook his head and led them down the hall to their designated room. He acted as though he was a frequent customer here.

When they walked into the room with two twin beds and a couch, Preda was suddenly exhausted. The bathroom was a shining beacon. Al let Fiver out so he could roam about the room, and Preda immediately went in the bathroom and shut the world out. The claw-foot tub with rust stains cascading down the inside was beautiful. After she peed, Preda turned on the water.

Al heard and was soon knocking on the door. “You can’t bathe, Preda. I need to clean that wound, and you shouldn’t get it wet.”

She almost cried in frustration. “Can you help me wash my hair at least?”

“Of course,” Al answered.

He propped a chair in front of the sink, and the warm water felt amazing as Al was rinsing her scalp. Preda fell asleep with her head against the sink. No one had ever washed her hair before, and now she thought she knew why women always went to salons. It was glorious.

Afterward Al used some lidocaine from his bag on her wound. The injection stung, but afterward it was blissfully numb. It was a good thing too. He hadn’t been joking when he said her wound wasn’t properly closed. It was at least three inches in width, and it looked as though all he had had time to do was throw a couple of stitches in the middle. This had left the edges gaping open. Thankfully he was able to clean it better and take his time closing it now. It took thirteen stitches to finish the job.

When she evaluated it in the mirror later, Preda was almost proud of the scar it would form. It was a good thing she had never thought herself very pretty anyway.

15

J
im knew it was necessary to use the part, but he couldn’t help feeling a twinge of disappointment when he dismantled the modified impulse gun. They could use a battery as well as cylindrical metal parts for field generation, but the ionization source could only come from one place. Unfortunately that meant tearing apart his own weapon. Will was the better shot anyway.

Jim had never tried to rig something from spare parts for an electrical field generator in any training module, and he had originally scoffed at the idea when Will first brought it up. Since then both had worked tirelessly through the night and then most of the day. The plan was starting to seem more unlikely to succeed by the hour.

Finally as the sun was starting to set, Jim looked up at Will and said, “The range is going to be short. Ten feet at the most. Once we turn it on, that’s it. We can’t move it after that. It’ll be too unstable. I can’t even test it, but it should work in theory.”

“That’s all we need,” Will replied with a confidence Jim didn’t feel.

Will had been running surveillance around the area and flushing out any possible weak security sites. Jim looked up at one point to see him drag a pile of barbed wire into the small alleyway behind the building where they had found the traces of licre. His hands were bloody afterward, but he didn’t even seem to notice.

Jim thought the plan was crazy, but Will had been right when he first brought up the idea. Jim couldn’t think of a better one. The rendezvous was compromised, and they couldn’t reach Tamron to tell him. The general would definitely be walking into a trap. Jim was sleep deprived and had been staring at electrical components for too long. He was starting to lose confidence.

If the Soundless were truly aware of the rendezvous time and place, it was terrifying how quiet they had been. No one had come near the place since Jim and Will had camped out on the roof. Even local people seemed to be avoiding the corner. The street vendor had long since packed up and moved his cart.

Jim shuddered as he considered how easily people on this planet could be quietly manipulated without even realizing it. They could be turned off like light switches and not even recognize the danger around them. The Soundless were known to communicate with each other without speaking. The House of Families had long debated their ability to communicate with others in that manner.

No one had even seen evidence of this talent until they had started surveillance here. It was scary. Jim shuddered as he remembered the first time he was shown video during a training session. Preda Vozia had still been an infant and was in her alleged mother’s arms. It had been a volatile period. The baby’s cries were heartrending. Even as an infant, she was so powerful that she could already project her emotions into an incoherent babble or cry.

Preda cried often as a baby, and Phillip Torrance and his wife were going insane with the torrent of emotions they were forced to feel against their wills. It was an unrelenting symphony of loss and abandonment. The two people who had taken her in had only understood the reward they would receive afterward. They could never bring themselves to love Preda.

Because of the baby’s incessant crying, the woman who called herself Preda’s mother had started to mentally turn herself off to her surroundings. She wore earplugs constantly. In the video she sat on a folding chair outside the motel they were staying in. It was an unstable time, and the Torrances were simply people greedy enough to keep Preda hidden for money. They knew very little about her ability except that they received instructions to move every so often when the Soundless got too close. With the baby being inconsolable, they were forced to move locations every few days in the beginning. Despite everyone’s best efforts to hide the family, the Soundless never seemed far behind.

Jim shuddered at the memory of the woman in the video as she stood quietly and dropped the crying infant into the folding chair behind her. She slowly turned around and started walking calmly into traffic. Two cars swerved to avoid her, and they hit each other instead. The woman stood still in the middle of the road with her eyes wide open and a smile on her face as a car mirror sideswiped her. The impact spun her around, and it was obvious in the video that the bones in her forearm were shattered. Her arm hung limp and awkward by her side after that, but she stood still with a smile on her face all the same.

The video had then cut off abruptly. Their instructor had explained that they had been forced to intervene as the Soundless were approaching the crying infant in the background. Preda’s “mother” was committed after that. There had been too many witnesses to the woman’s growing instability. To anyone watching the video, it was obvious she was under someone else’s control. Phillip Torrance had seemed to accept it, but his apparent bitterness toward the child had never faded.

The scene of that woman standing in the road with a broken arm was ingrained in Jim’s memory as a sharp reminder that everyone here was a potential enemy. He could see in Will’s determined expression that he had not forgotten the lesson either. As Jim looked over at his friend, he noted the setting sun in the background. Jim knew they were as ready for this as they could be.